


Sunset

by charlottechill



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 15:59:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlottechill/pseuds/charlottechill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years on years later, and everything's just fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunset

NOTES: I was feeling poignant and driving on the freeway. It happened  
to be sunset, and one thought led to another, which eventually led to  
this story. Thanks to Megan, Julie, Maygra and Ellie, and to everyone  
who reads this stuff. 

"Sunset"  
Charlotte C. Hill, charlottechill@yahoo.com

Buck leaned against his lover's chest, enjoying the late afternoon and the slow pace of another beautiful day. Chris's breath touched his neck every few minutes, like the man was sharing his attention between the afternoon, and Buck's skin. Which of course, he was. The last fifteen years had been some of the hardest, and some of the most precious, and they didn't take enough time to just relax, unwind, enjoy the quiet space and silence that could rest so easily between them.

That silence used to come pretty easily to Vin, too; Buck cut off a snort before it got out, unwilling to break the mood. Marriage had brought out a joyful wildness in their mustang, and Vin seemed to feed off his wife's passion and the animation of his children. Vin, Jenny and four kids together would stir up trouble this weekend, disturbing the peace up here, and Buck knew for a fact that Vin took them off the leash on purpose. Vin loved watching Chris herd his kids, and since Buck did too, he tried to add to the mayhem any way he could. 

Chris shifted behind him, and the button of his pants pressed lightly on Buck's lower back. It was warm here, would have been even if it were ten degrees outside. And Buck knew what cold felt like, knew it intimately and personally, from that time that had chilled him to the bone and sent Chris into a world that was cold and brittle and dark. He shifted a little, basking in the heat that for years now had done nothing but grow, like flowers in the sun. 

Two of the horses, Stud and Merry, nickered at each other in the corral. The barn was full, and they had debated adding on versus tearing down and starting fresh. 

Chris leaned toward rebuilding, so he could get in there and swing a hammer and climb on scaffolds and generally boss the construction crew and pretend he'd done the job single-handed. And new materials would make it a better home for the stock anyhow; winters were cold. 

Vin would want to help, since two of the new fillies belonged to his two oldest girls. He'd help if Jenny cut him loose long enough, anyway. Buck couldn't keep back the chuckle this time, and Chris made an interrogative sound against his shoulder. A hand swept gently across his chest, absently comforting, and Buck reached up to hold his lover's wrist, and twine their fingers together to reassure. 

Some would say Vin Tanner was pussy whipped. Vin would say (and Buck had vocally agreed whenever Chris proposed to doubt it) that he was exactly where he wanted to be, with an independent woman he loved to pieces and who matched the passion and the poetry inside him, four kids they'd cranked out like a vending machine, a nanny (thank God for all of them) and, Chris slyly whispered on occasion, dedicated and regular sex. Chris had gone so far as to bet on four times a week, Buck wholeheartedly agreed. Jenny had that sated look about her, and Buck knew those signs well enough to read them in the dark. And Vin looked more energetic than he'd ever been, so he was getting everything he needed…

Buck pushed the thought away, and stretched his free hand beside him to rub slowly up and down Chris's thigh. Chris shifted slightly.

"Am I too heavy?" Buck asked.

The arm tightened around his chest and Chris's ribs expanded against his back on a deeply drawn breath. "Hell, no."

God, they were all lucky. For all the shit, for Vin finding the woman of his dreams and Buck missing the worst of a bullet and Josiah's near-conviction, for Ezra's cockiness and Nathan's sternness and his and Chris's own horrors and JD's youthful ignorance that kept him from ever catching up with the rest of them, they were all alive, and still generally together. And out of the field. Nobody had killed anybody for more than five years, and that felt better than Buck could have imagined. 

"You moonin' again?" Chris's breath, soft as butterfly wings, tickled his ear. 

Buck smiled. "Yeah," he admitted. Yeah, he sure as hell was. Two more years and Chris would retire early at 54, and while that would be the end of the Team, it wouldn't be the end of the team. Buck, Vin and Nathan had already been promoted and were just waiting for Chris to quit, so they could decide what to do. JD did more and more work for the department at large, and it was just a good thing that computer geeks could telecommute or he'd have been swept back to D.C. 

"You think Vin'll keep working?" Buck asked, musing.

"What?"

"When you retire," he clarified. "I get the feeling he's stayin' because you are."

Chris's shrug rubbed against his shoulder blade. "They got plenty of money. I don't know."

Buck shook his head. Chris had never asked, probably; Buck didn't know why, the closeness between Chris and Vin had never faltered, not in all these years, but there were some things Chris just wouldn't talk to Vin about. Not as far as Buck knew, anyhow; the pair slipped off to go fishing once or twice a year, quiet celebration of a friendship they both valued and relied on, and who knew what they did when they were alone together? 

Well, whether Vin stayed and moved up the ladder, or quit, everyone had what they wanted, what they needed. Vin had brought back that wife-and-kids-and-minivan feeling that had been sorely absent in this home, which was good because neither Chris nor Buck would have ever supplied it. Chris wouldn't risk his heart or their relationship again, and Buck, well, he just wasn't the marrying kind. 

Vin's family satisfied that desire to parent that Adam had--maybe better, Buck guardedly surmised. He and Chris shared the same bed every night, and Vin had brought four children into the equation. Buck would never say it, rarely even think it, because he missed Adam and Sarah sometimes still, when Jenny and the kids were here, when children's laughter and Chris's hearty paternal coaching caught him unawares. Sometimes he'd look around for her, and Chris would see it and reach out and they'd share one silent, horrible moment of mourning… 

That was all right. Sarah Connelly deserved to be missed, and remembered. And she'd have wanted "her men" happy--Chris and Buck had done a few of their own "fishing trips" back in the day that had nothing at all to do with fishing, and Sarah had been far, far from stupid. Buck figured nobody had ever talked about it, but nobody had ever loved anybody less for that, either. 

Buck didn't resent her memory any more than he'd resented her presence in Chris's life. He just missed her, and that made him value his honorary membership in Vin's family even more. Most of the time life was like a dream come true, to have light and love and the sound of children back in this home. Vin's kids spent more than their fair share of time at "Uncle" Chris's ranch, while Jenny and Vin pretended they were roughing it with neither nanny nor housekeeper. Jenny's family money had changed a few things for Vin, and it seemed funny, in the face of that godawful Purgatory apartment he had once happily called home. 

It seemed insane to question relationships that worked together so seamlessly, so richly. 

"JD might take a transfer," Chris offered. 

"You think?"

Chris shrugged. "Nettie won't be around much longer, and I don't know what else holds Casey here, really."

"I'd rather he stayed," Buck said slowly. 

Chris's arm squeezed tighter. "Maybe he will. You're family to him now. To both of them."

Buck craned his head around to see his lover's somber profile, and squeezed the hand he held. "We all are, Chris."

Chris's face softened but he just nodded, and Buck settled deeper, more comfortably, into his lover's embrace. 

"How about you?" Chris asked after a moment. 

Buck mustered the energy to make some noncommittal sound. He didn't know and couldn't decide what he'd do if he quit. But this job had always been about the Team for him, and the Team had first and foremost been about Chris. His old condo was entirely paid off, and he had a little interest in a couple of real estate investments Ezra had tapped him for, years ago. The way the markets kept climbing downtown, he could probably live off the rents forever...

The sun arced slowly toward the horizon. 

Carlie's birthday was coming up, and a month after that, Vin's and Jenny's anniversary. 

Chris had looked so good at the wedding. Chris usually did, though, and Buck had taken him to a fancy barbershop especially for the pictures. Polished him up a little, with a European tux that fit him like James Bond's. Buck remembered to this day, the sensation of that rented silk tie sliding through his fingers and toward the floor. Jenny had laughed and said Chris looked like a movie star, and she had been right. And when Vin and Jenny took off on their honeymoon, Chris and Buck had checked into the hotel that had hosted the reception and celebrated another honeymoon of their own, and the tuxes were returned a day late, wrinkled to hell and back.

A new wedding photo with the seven of them, Vin in the gray and Chris playing best man, Buck one step further removed from the altar as groomsman with the rest of the team, sat on a shelf in the living room. Behind it were older, faded wedding photos, of Chris in the gray and Buck in the black, and Sarah, images that had yellowed with time and tears. 

Another picture rested beside those, of him and Chris that Vin had slipped the photographer a hundred dollars for: _Make 'em look good, pal,_ he'd said, _just like me and Jenny._

Fucker. 

Buck smiled, and turned in his lover's arms. "You remember that photographer at Vin's wedding?"

Chris chuckled and slid strong, smooth hands over Buck's jaw to cup his face. He leaned in before answering, and the kiss was as slow and sweet and new as the first, decades ago. 

"I remember," he said. "You thought I was gonna kill Vin."

"You were!"

"Y'all like to think that, don't ya? But where's that picture now?" Chris challenged, self-satisfied. 

Man had a point. And as silly as it seemed, that picture of them, laughing, loving, arm in arm, meant a lot to Buck, probably more than Chris would ever know.

But then again, maybe not. After all, look where it was now… 

Buck knelt up, swung around to straddle Chris's right thigh, and bent his head. Chris, always so easy, so connected to him when it came to lovemaking, bumped his head on the house wall as he tilted his neck back, and the kisses went on too long. 

"You want to go to bed, 'fore they get here?" Chris asked, his voice already husky with desire. 

"Rather stay here."

Chris blanched. "I do not want those kids running around the corner of the house while we're in the middle of something."

*Idiot*, Buck thought fondly. "Come on, Chris. You know he don't ever come up here without honkin' the horn. I know we're good together, but I don’t think we're gonna black out."

Chris jerked back, startled, and Buck laughed out loud when he realized that Chris had never cottoned on to what that horn, and its sick one-note rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, was for. It had irritated the hell out of him for years, but he hadn't known why Vin did it. 

"He does it for us, pard," Buck said softly, spelling it out anyway. "Always, with Jenny or the kids, most of the time even when he's alone."

Buck watched the thoughts process through Chris's brain even as he felt his lover push him out of the way. Chris scrambled to his feet and ripped open the fly on his Dockers and Buck, aroused and delighted, slid warm hands down his thighs to help him out of them. 

"Glad you see it my way, stud." He eased his jeans open and down over his own pulsing erection, and Chris's eyes narrowed in speculative desire. 

"Don't know if I see it _exactly_ your way..." 

Buck laughed in spite of himself, peeled off his shirt and walked to the kitchen door. Inside, he dug into the odds and ends jar and came out with a tube of lubricant. Looked like somebody was going to need it. 

When he came back out, he found Chris sitting against the wall, slumped down a little and legs out straight, palms absently sliding against his upper thighs. "Ah," Buck joked, and shucked his jeans. He waved the lube toward his partner as he ambled over and purposely stepped wide across Chris's knees. "Subtle."

"You're one to talk," Chris retorted, but his gaze traveled up Buck's body hungrily, and by the time their eyes met Chris had that urgency about him, that fists-clenching desire for _now_. They'd sat here for an hour or more, in silent communion, thoughts wandering back over decades or forward into possibilities, not saying much at all and comfortable just being together. 

But now, Chris needed him, needed his body as much as he'd ever needed his heart, and that knowledge burned so warm and bright, Buck's chest ached with it. 

He knelt down, edging forward a little as Chris's hands wrapped around the backs of his bare thighs.

Chris stretched up, kissed him with a fervor that dazed him, that made it hard for him to uncap the lube and smear some over his palm. He wrestled control of the situation back by dint of grabbing his lover's cock and stroking a loaded, slick palm over it. 

Chris yelped, and jumped with the jolt of desire. 

Buck laughed, breathy and hungry, into his mouth.

Sometimes, they talked a lot. Sometimes they chattered or tried to remember tedious things that needed doing or laughed, in bed. Most times, like now, they didn't use any words at all. 

Buck tilted his head. Chris held out his hand. Buck spread the lubricant across a couple of fingers, and scooted his knees further up, alongside his lover's hips, until he felt the tickle of the hairs on Chris's thighs play against the bottom of his butt, and the gentle pressure of his lover's erection separate his balls. 

More kisses, more long-familiar strokes across greedy skin, until Chris finally parted his cheeks and slid slick fingers inside him. Buck moaned, his arm around Chris's shoulders clutched tighter almost of its own accord. So good… Strong thighs moved restlessly between his wide-spread knees, rubbing up his inner thighs. This was an easy day, and Chris was so gentle with his body, slowly circling his fingers to press and stimulate his inner walls, to loosen him enough that penetration would be like a shot of ecstasy, no discomfort at all. 

He groaned again, shuddered. His belly carved out an empty ache, and Chris's free hand stroked up his chest to rub at his neck. 

"I'm right here," Chris said, and slid his fingers deeper. 

Ahh, God… Chris was everywhere… 

He kissed his lover more intently, trying to focus on the one smooth sensation of mouth on mouth, but Chris wasn't letting him distract himself. The hand at his neck smoothed back down his chest, pinched at his nipples, tickled his belly button and finally skimmed over the tip of his weeping erection. 

The heat flared through him, in his gut, in his heart. He drew away, witnessed the passion and the smug certainty and the depth of love in Chris's eyes, and couldn't decide whether to laugh, frown or bear down hard on the fingers that probed him. God, Chris was a conceited sonofabitch. Lucky for all of them, if he got too full of himself he had six friends to remind him…

"Come on, up now," Chris urged, and his hands moved to cup Buck's butt and tug him forward. Buck raised himself and tilted his hips. Chris lined them up and he settled down slowly, feeling the head press and widen him then slip through, and the shaft it rode on slide in and in until the craving in his belly was fed and Chris's soft grunt marked the limit of their joining. A quiver ran from his ass and out in all directions, like ripples on smooth water. 

Buck began to work then, placed his hands on Chris's shoulders and lifted up, slid down, lifted up, slid down. Chris thrust gently to meet him, the tension in that whipcord body wound as tight as a piano wire. Chris's hand wormed in between them to take up his cock, to stroke it gently in counterpoint with the fury rising between them, and in scant minutes--locked together at groin, mouth and heart--Buck was coming, his orgasm ripped straight from his soul. Chris grunted beneath him, and in the nimbus of pleasure he felt the jerky thrusts, the tight-held pause at the end, the barely-sensed jet inside him. 

He found himself wrapped around Chris, hunched over, mashing him into the wall of the house. Chris held him just as tightly, and they just sat there together, panting and sweaty. When Buck got his breath back he laughed, "Ride 'em, cowboy."

"That ought to be my line, don't you think?" Chris smirked. His eyes were so deep and clear, Buck could stare into them forever. 

"Sun's setting," Buck murmured, before he got all mushy.

"How can you tell?"

He stared at the way Chris's hair had gone all gold, with fiery tints of red, and the way the sun warmed his skin to the color of clover honey, then tilted his head up. "Reflection on the window."

"Oh. Yeah." Chris shifted beneath him, and Buck eased up, his quads tight and well-worked, his butt aching pleasantly, the aftermath of orgasm washing gently over him and mixing all his emotions together, like rain into a pond. Chris held the base of his cock to make the separation a little easier, and Buck turned in his lover's lap. 

Chris opened his legs and bore Buck's weight again, as together they watched the sun kiss the horizon. 

The blare of a car horn broke the tranquility of the moment, and both of them jerked. 

"Shit!" Buck snarled, climbing to his feet.

"Relax," Chris said, scrambling for his clothes anyway, "We've got a minute or two, before they get up here and unload."

"Yeah, I know. I just… I was likin' this."

"You're the one promised him we'd play baby sitter this weekend," Chris reminded. 

After a couple of years to get over hearing children cry or laugh in his home and know they weren't Adam, Chris had adopted Vin's children as easily, as gratefully, as Buck had adopted Adam and Sarah. "I knew you'd like it," Buck tried.

"And you don't?" Chris retorted, smiling now as he tucked his shirt into his trousers. "Bullshit."

"All right," Buck grumbled. "Fine, bullshit. They could've waited another half hour to get here, though."

"You tell Vin that," Chris warned, "and he'll think you're off your feed, and ask me why you didn't start the action half an hour earlier."

Vin would, too. Car doors opened and slammed out front as he hustled to button up his jeans. Then, after stepping up and pushing Chris's hands out of the way, he leaned in for a brief, eternal kind of kiss. 

Buck grinned. "I should have."

 

\- epilogue - 

They got into the front hall just as the front door opened and the two eldest kids stormed in and Chris hollered his traditional, "Who's tearin' down my house?"

High-pitched giggles that would have run the dogs away started up, as Carlie and Sarah sprinted into to them. "Uncle Chris! Uncle Buck!" they howled. 

Buck grunted as he swung Carlie up. "Hey little woman, you're almost getttin' too big for this. What are you, sixteen?"

Carlie rolled her eyes. "I'm ten," she said, in that long-suffering tone of a child who thinks she's mature beyond her years. 

"Chris! Buck!" Vin's voice called from the car, "You want to get your lazy butts out here and give us some help?"

Buck smiled at Chris's contented profile, at the easy way his lover held six-year-old Sarah, then looked out to the lovers in the yard. 

Their closest friend and a newer, almost as welcome one traded a toddler for a squirming four-year-old boy, who Vin dropped inelegantly to the ground.

"Oh stop it, Vin," Jenny's voice, quieter, "they're doing us a favor."

Chris looked over at him and smirked, and Buck chuckled, shook his head. 

"Ah, give it a rest, honey," Vin said casually. "We're doing _them_ a favor, and don't you let 'em tell you different."

Vin grabbed CC's elbow just as the boy started to make a dash for the barn. "Huh uh, you. Inside, say howdy, give your uncle Chris a hug and then we go out together. You know better'n that."

CC-- Christopher Charles Tanner, Buck still cringed sometimes, to hear it aloud, but Vin had no siblings and had wanted to acknowledge his closest ties--changed directions and swarmed up the steps, Vin and Jenny following close behind. 

"Hey you two," Jenny smiled, throwing her head to toss her long blonde hair back over her shoulders. 

Buck smiled his own greeting and stepped back to let them in, absently noting the curve of her bottom and the legs that went on forever… Vin was one lucky fella. 

"You're sure you're all right with this?" Jenny asked dubiously, as she did every time. 

"We're fine, Jenny," Chris assured.

Buck just nodded, unseen, and patted Vin on the shoulder. The kids liked the sleepover thing in the living room. Vin and Jenny would sleep in the back, saddle up and slip out into the National Park on horses before any of the kids woke, and tomorrow some or all of the team would be up: Nathan and Rain would bring Summer, JD and Casey would come for sure. Josiah had promised to join them, and while Ezra had sounded more ambivalent, Buck figured they'd see him by suppertime. 

They did need to rebuild the barn. Maybe even get some animals in, because six hundred acres against a national forest deserved to have something grazing on it. 

He and Chris would find plenty to do, and the idea of leaving him every morning to go and work for someone who wasn't his lover--Buck was spoiled and he knew it. Always had been. 

And suddenly, two years seemed like an awfully long way away. 

\- the end - 

[ the DnF archive](http://dnf.slashcity.org)

**Author's Note:**

> This has a C/V parallel piece, i.e. one of these versions I wrote first, the other I wrote second, but it's basically the same story, changed only enough to reflect the differences in the pairings.


End file.
